In August 2008 I opened up a shop on Etsy. It started as a way to keep myself busy while looking for a job. Now, it has become my job and I love it. It really is a dream come true being able to create beautiful items for people all across the country.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

I was asked to do a flower girl basket about two weeks ago. I wasn't sure how to go about it or what to all put on it. I didn't want to do too much and make it look tacky and at the same time I wanted to do enough to make it worth it.

I sat with the ivory basket in front of me for 2 hours before I even started on it.

This is what I came up with, and the best part, the client loved it!

All of the buttons are hand sewn on. The stem and the leaf of the flower is a hand embroidered chain stitch.

There is a line of buttons sewn along the bottom of the basket. I thought it needed something else.

The best part...it matches the bouquet she also ordered! There is also a matching boutonniere to go with this order, but silly me forgot to take a picture of it before it got shipped off.

So, now I guess I can add Flower Girl Baskets to the list of items available. Once I got started it was a lot of fun to make. It was just the process of getting there that wasn't as enjoyable :)

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

I received an email last week for a custom order. The bride liked the Secret Garden bouquet but wanted the purple to be periwinkle and to add daisies. I am never sure how mixing different mediums will end up in the end. I didn't know how this one would work.

My first challenge, before mixing the daisies, was to figure out what color periwinkle actually is. I had a small 12 stem bouquet order awhile back that consisted of orange flowers and periwinkle buttons. I ended up finding a few buttons that kind of worked. It wasn't the best match but I was able to mix in some other colors to cancel out my lack of periwinkle buttons.

This time around I thought I would dye my own, using a paint sample I found to match the color. I threw in one button and it turned out the right color. I was shocked! So I put in a bag full of assorted size buttons. I stir, stir, mix, mix and pull them out. They turned out PURPLE! Not sure how that happened when the first one was a periwinkle blue.

So, I tried again. This time I got pretty close. I ended up just going with it to avoid wasting buttons. I sent some pictures to the client and she really liked how they turned out.

I put the bouquet together, daisies and all and it went a lot smoother than expected. Check out the pictures.

I sent pictures for approval before I started working on the other pieces for the order...and...She LOVED it! It was a big relief to hear that she loves it and it is exactly what she wanted! It really made my day!

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

One of my favorite types of buttons to use are ones shaped like flowers. I think they look really cool and give it a flower feel amongst a whole bunch of round buttons. Here are a few of my favorites that I have used in bouquets before.

The bow is great as well in this bouquet but I love the two flowers used on the stem below it.

Monday, July 20, 2009

I love when I see something and it translates into a bouquet. I saw a group of paint samples the other day and just had to make a bouquet. The colors were called Paradise Valley, Seashore, Lilac Rose and Cottage Orchid. It turned out to be beautiful. Reminds me of a garden, so I named it The Secret Garden Bouquet.

The original paint chips I found.

Close up of the bouquet. I think I was able to match the buttons pretty well. Took awhile but it was worth it in the end.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

So, as most of you know...I love buttons. I have so many and in all shapes, sizes and colors. In my studio, I have quite a few pounds (I don't even have a guess at how many pounds it is, lets just say too many!)

Over the past year I have come across some really pretty buttons as well as some that are very ugly. There have also been some "misfits" that must have struggled during creation.

I thought I would create a new blog series about my finds in the button world. Feel free to comment and tell me if you think these are good, bad or ugly. Beautiful or what were they thinking!

Have some buttons of your own that you think would fit into these categories? Send me an email and I can put up some pictures on my blog. rbkcreations@gmail.com

In a variety box of buttons I received I founds some HUGE buttons. They made me laugh so I created one stem of them. I like to call them buttons on steroids!

They ended up being some good colors to put together. It is a nice addition to the studio decor.

The stem on the left is the big buttons while the one on the right is the average size button stem to show the difference. It makes the other stems look so tiny.

And this is the big button stem next to a 30 stemmed bouquet. It is about 1/3 of the whole bouquet!

Thursday, July 9, 2009

I don't usually make felt bouquets. In fact before July 1st, I didn't even know how to do the fancy embroidery stitches. I had a customer email me and ask if I could create these for her.

She contacted me on July 1st and her wedding is on July 24th...in the United Kingdom. So that meant I had to teach myself (fast) how to do the stitches and get going on this order. With caffeine in hand, I was able to do all the stitching and get them done! We tried to do a cascade on the bride's bouquet, after four attempts it just wasn't working.

We decided that it would be best to keep the bride's bouquet in the original round shape, like the bridesmaids. The professional pictures will turn out better and it will just look better in general.

The order consisted of one bride bouquet, four bridesmaid bouquets, one groom boutonniere (Button Hole), six additional boutonnieres and three pin on corsages. The color scheme is cream and a dark navy blue.